2 The party

Yeah, it is official. I will kidnap Clovis' chef and make him work for me in the future.

Seriously, how is it that his cakes are so good? I already ate more than ten slices and I still want more, and that is not to talk about his other sweets that he knows how to make.

Taking another bite of this bite-sized heaven I feel a bliss run down my spine.

"Calm down, Ciel. The cake is not going anywhere." Lelouch said on my side and I rolled my eyes at this affirmation.

"I know it won't, it doesn't mean I intend on not eating all of it before-"

"Lulu! Ciel! You two were there, why did you not warn us?!" a young voice said from the right in the distance, and I could not help but sigh.

So the competition came, huh?

Turning to look I see two pinketes approaching. The two have long silky hair but while one is more reserved and with the hair coming down more straight and with a pink that could be called Spanish pink the other is much more animated and with the hair having much more volume and the tips in a roll and more vibrant pink on the hair. The two are very cute and pretty, they are Marrybell Mel Britania and Euphemia Li Britania, two of the princesses of our kingdom.

Yep, these two will grow up to both be called 'massacre princess', both killing hundreds, if not thousands, but the most important fact for me-

"Hey, there are sweets with them!" Marrybell said, pointing at the box of sweets by our side.

"Let's go and get some!" Euphemia said happily, the two starting to run right to us, or rather the package of heaven.

I, I will not let them take my sweets!

Standing up I took the box and went running away from them. Clovis showed an amused face at my savior action, Nunally was still eating a cookie with a happy smile on her face (I had separated a large amount of cookies just for her beforehand as she loves them), and Lelouch is pretending to not see me.

Traitorous bastard, this is important! Help me!

Just you wait, I will not help you in the future too, you are a traitor of our friendship!

I ran with all I had, my legs burning as the scenery passed by me. I will get away and ensure that the sweets will not fall on enemy hands.

... Or so I tried.

"And why exactly did you try to run anyway?" Euphemia said in front of me, a hand in her hips as Marrybel had MY box of sweets in her hands. "You know you are no good in physical matters, so why try?"

"B-Because *HUFF* *HUFF*, I don't want *HUFF* *HUFF* to share it all." I said while huffing, my forehead covered in sweat.

My physical capacity is, for the lack of better words, about as good as Lelouch's, which means outright terrible. Seriously, I suck at this running thing. Euphemia and Marrybel caught up to me in less than two minutes for Christ's sake.

Well, it could be worse I guess. They could try and take it completely away from me, instead, they just want to share in the goods, so I suppose I can allow it.

Seeing that I stopped trying to run away the two pulled me back to where we came from, Lelouch and the others were barely containing the laughter as they saw me so easily defeated.

"Little Ciel, I think you should try and exercise more. This was simply awful." Clovis said, taking one cookie from the box and putting in his mouth after he reached us.

I flipped him off, he only chuckled seeing me do that as he probably guessed I would do something like this.

Seeing that I would not be able to eat my fill I gave up and went with them back to the picnic area. No point in not enjoying good food I guess, besides I need sugar due to how my brain works. Sugar is needed to help me think faster and to give energy to my brain for me to continue the production of my first published theory about how to create a stable source of nearly unlimited energy that could be small enough. It would be a loop system based on a mix of Sakuradite and Nuclear fusion, but it was honestly not my current main concern as I had that mostly figured out long ago and am not worried too much on that front.

I spend more time with Lloyd writing down how to build better mechas as that is much more interesting and because I was honestly disappointed when I saw and understood the functionality and work build of the 'most advanced' model on the line of production, the Sutherlands. When I saw it during one of Lloyd's classes I quickly elaborated on how to better its functionality and gave several workable ideas to the scientist.

If I didn't know any better I'd say that I might have helped the development for the Lancelot in at least 5 or 6 years, since then Lloyd and I exchanged multiple ideas about it, well mostly me fixing wrong ideas and indicating better ways Knightmare frame to work to raise all its specs.

Right now I am writing down a separated code of programming to our future Knightmare Frames as a way to counter hacking and someone counter engineering any of my machines, and, most importantly, trying to develop nanotechnology to help mother live longer. It is a lot on my plate, honestly speaking I wonder sometimes when I will manage to put everything down, but it is all needed for the future I want.

Turning to the others I could not resist but ask.

"Hey, what do you all want for the world? I mean, if you could change it right here and now, how would you like it to be?"

The others looked at me confused but the first one to talk was Nunally.

"I want to live in a happy world with my brother." She said happily as she leaned on Lelouch's side and continued munching on the cookie.

Lelouch seemed to melt when he heard that, no one even bothered asking him as he likely thought the exact same.

"Well, I want to make this entire world recognize the greatness of Britania and that everyone will know of me." Clovis said, he honestly loved himself way too much.

"I want the world to be in peace and for everyone to understand each other." Euphemia said.

"I want to be with my family forever and ever. I also would want for all those rebels and terrorists to stop harassing us and for the war to be over." Marrybel said.

"And I want this world to remain entartaining." A voice said behind me, and I felt a shiver run down my spine hearing it. Fuck, if I knew this guy would show up I would not have come even if there were cake and sweets involved.

...maybe.

What can I say? I love these way too much. Almost enough to stomach the presence of the fake one, Shneizel is a hateful being to me and the fact he would even accept use a F.R.E.I.J.A. in CANON is enough to tell me he is a terrifying and unsensitive monster.

Schneizel is elegantly standing there. He looks at everyone with a look of fondness that almost made me believe he cared about anyone but himself, almost.

"And what exactly is the entertaining you are after, cousin?" I asked.

"Many things, I especially enjoy the court and dealings with foreign countries, trying to outsmart everyone and avoiding get outsmarted in turn is an incredibly interesting thing to do. I also hope to be able to see my siblings enjoy themselves, just like right now." Shneizel said. "And you, cousin, what would you change and wish for?"

"For me to have my own city. I would bring all the best and most talented people in the world and would advance the world by 200 years and be remembered as the one who brought forth a new renascence." I said. Well, this and a few other things like bringing forward more anime and mangas as well as finding myself a girlfriend or two. I don't need to reach the point of uncle Charles, but I wouldn't be against female companionship as well.

Besides, I want to make my own little kingdom. I don't understand even with all this intelligence why anyone would want to rule so much land like most of my family wants to, heck just imagining the amount of paperwork and 'important' matters that I would have to deal with is enough to make me terrified.

Hearing my answer most of the others looked at me surprised and with faces like they thought I was being funny. Well, except for two people.

One is Lelouch, he is the one who understands me the best amongst my siblings as we spend quite a lot of time together. The other, however, surprised me a bit.

Clasping my hands in hers Marrybel looked at me with sparkling eyes.

"Amazing, to think you want to make such great contributions to this world. Please, in the future if you need anything don't forget to tell." Marrybel said. She is always like this, she might act meek sometimes but deep down she is very decisive and headstrong. I bet that if, in the future, I need her help she would really do it.

I could only show a shaky smile at that one, I know better than to expect her help through since I probably will rebel in my own way against the empire in the future. I do mean what I said about creating and controlling my own city, and considering how technological it will become I have no doubts that the other princes and the empire will want it in their control.

Not that I will let it through. I do like my stuff being mine after all.

What I need are capable helpers, pilots for my future machines. Thanks to the deal with the entity that sent me here I can see the talent for piloting in others like a color, the more vivid the color or mix of colors the more talented someone is. For instance, the color on Marrybel is highly vibrant in red and yellow with tints of blue showing great power and killing capacity but the green is weak so she is not that good with long distance, she would do well on a closer or mid range combat. Cornelia is strong in all purely combat fronts, the colors on her indicating that she would work well under any type but is more capable in close combat and in leading during combat as her red and purple colors are stronger.

I want to create a team where they would all have absurdly high potential, so much so that no one would deny it. In case of a doubt here is how the colors work: Red for close combat, Blue for mid-range combat, Yellow for mobility, Purple for capacity to lead in combat, Green for long-range combat, Brown for capacity in engineering and science in general, and Orange for Loyalty. None of my siblings had Orange on them, except Marrybel who have some, but it is still too weak. If I made it a point I guess she could be loyal but her ultimate loyalty would remain with Britania. I would need a lot of work or something drastic to change in her for her to go fully to my side, right now it just isn't happening.

"Thanks, Marry. And if you ever need help, you just need to ask." I said back, and I mean it. It may sound strange considering I am thinking on how to better kill their 'father' (if Charles even deserve that name) but I do consider them family and I would be dammed if I were to let them die for nothing when I could intervene to stop it. Well, I know some of them will likely die due to this current world we live in but I will at least try and protect them as much as possible and grant asylum to them if needed in case they need to run away.

Oh, that reminds me.

"Marry, when is it that you are going to show us those two friends of yours. You know, the Oz twins." I said while faking innocence. The Oz twins are two future ace pilots, the two have high potential and I can't help but wonder if I can induce loyalty in them.

"They will be on the party tonight, this is the party to coronate their mother as the knight of eight after all." Marrybel said.

Oh well, if this is such an 'important' party I am sure they and likely others will be there. Not like the number of parties in the court isn't absurdly high but still, I guess a new appointment for a knight of the round deserves some respect, even if they change quite a bit due to all this war that is happening.

After that talk, I had to try my damn best to not show how annoyed I was by the intrusion of Shneizel as the picnic continued. At least it was relaxing enough and I had a sufficient intake of delicious, delicious sugar, so after about two hours of enjoying the quality family time I said my goodbyes to everyone and left to my lab. I still want to see how my new experiments were going and I had to put down some of my new ideas for future experiments and see how Lloyd was doing in his own experiments.

Entering the lab I saw Lloyd with a mad smile-like expression on his face as he was currently giving the final tests on one of our latest experiments.

"So, Lloyd. How is it going? Any good or we will need to remake it from scratch?" I asked as I entered.

As he saw me the respectable young man (He was currently only 18) raised his eyes and looked at me. His eyes were full of reverence and curiosity as he skipped my way.

"My teacher, I must say that it is going perfectly as expected! Honestly, I still cannot believe we managed to create such a wonderful weapon in just this short month while also working on other projects, but the achievement of creating of a true plasma weapons like these in such a short time, I am humbled to be in your service and of advancing science to a new age."

"Yeah, yeah, whatever. You and I both knows that our relationship is of mutual help. You don't need to go and act like this with me, also don't get so excited with only this much. You and I are just getting started, I plan on so much more than just this toy." I said, Lloyd was ecstatic hearing it as he probably started thinking on what future weapons we would create.

Well, even if I said this weapon isn't that much it doesn't mean it isn't leagues above what we have in the military. The Beam Katana is a single-handed weapon, it has a reach of about 25 meters and its temperature on the blade is of 30.000 degrees Celsius. It can slice through Knightmares and buildings like they are paper or even less, but the most important and hard aspect was ensuring that the heat and plasma were kept in a limited area. It took me and Lloyd quite some time to figure out and the Emperor is waiting for results about this and our semi-unlimited power source.

I will present them later tonight to him, after ensuring that the tech is properly unusable to others unless in big bases of operation to the power source in theory and that instead of Plasma weapons I showcase the HV (high Vibration) weapons that also cut extremely well. Both would likely help the Empire's battlefront but I would keep the best to myself.

After we finished reviewing the Beam Katana I started my discussions with Lloyd about how to implement other machines, he was quite great as a partner to discuss this but he lagged behind every once in a while when talking to me. I guess I should look into bio engineering to see if I can increase someone's mental capacity, I am sure there are plenty of terrorists and enemies of the State down in the dungeons that would work well as lab rats for this endeavor of mine.

Anyway, we continued our discussions we lost count of the time, we were engrossed in the possibilities as we continued heated discussions about how to minimize the size of our semi-nuclear generator for it to fit on a knightmare frame, we already have a mostly functional prototype for the bigger one but the smaller unity is our actual objective here as I want to be freer to use energy-heavy items and weapons on my future knightmares. But, just as the two of us were reaching the good part and ideas started becoming more and more defines, someone entered the room with a huff of irritation on her voice.

"Prince Ciel! Why are you still here? Your mother said that you should be getting ready as the party will begin shortly." The intruder said, and both I am Lloyd rolled our eyes at her. She was a 12 years old girl with short blue hair and an honestly cute face that was looking at both of us in exasperation.

"Cécile, that can't be right. I should still have like 4 hours until the damn hell begins." I said.

"No, it is in half an hour. You two were discussing this entire time and your mother was worried and sent me here to check on you." Cécile Croomy said. She was 12 years old and one of the maids my mother got for me, I refused anyone who wasn't at least decently smart and I used my power to identify that she can develop an acceptable level of loyalty to me so I had no big issues with her in that time.

But, she is far too into bossing me around.

'Master Ciel, no running with sharp objects.'

'Master Ciel, no snacking after midnight.'

'Master Ciel, no creating weapons of mass destruction or play with bombs.'

'Master Ciel, please stop trying to create a mass hypnotizing machine to make everyone give you candy.'

It is like she wants to suck away all the fun of life.

"Fine, you buzzkill." I said with an annoyed face.

She nodded happily as she took out a chocolate bar from her pocket and gave it to me.

I accepted it but after the first bite I spit it out.

"Yuck, no sugar chocolate. Do you hate me that much?" I said with an angry snarl.

"You already eat too much sugar, at least take this before the party as I am sure there will be sweets there." Cécile said.

I. Hate. No-sugar sweets!

They DARE to pretend to be sweets while they aren't, how evil. When I command my city/kingdom I will eliminate anyone carrying that monstrosity. And I will even heal diabetes to make no one have that excuse to carry that sin around.

Sigh, if only I could begin already, but I still am too young to build my city, besides I want it to be in Japan as it will be close to large reserves of Sakuradite for me to study it more deeply. But right now I guess I don't have much of a chance of choosing here.

"Let's just get this over with. But Cécile, I want you to come back here and start helping Lloyd in whatever he may need during the time I am away, I want him to be able to work to his best and you are our assistant anyway." I said, and she rolled her eyes at that one. It was an unofficial title that all the staff under me are semi-assistants and capable of that as well, all with a strong Brown color in them even if none can really match Lloyd amongst them, even if Cécile is not that far away.

I said my goodbyes to Lloyd, mostly out of courtesy as he was still high on the state where ideas keep coming to his mind and likely hasn't understood me talking to him, and moved out of my lab.

Looking outside I saw that it was already dark, I would likely not be getting in the party in time but I doubt Charles will care. He dotes on mother and me too much to say anything negative, and considering the gift I will be giving him things will work out okay.

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

I am now inside the party hall, hundreds of people here and many of them from the military and talking of their accomplishments. If what they were saying is true then they would be all amazing, but considering how most of them have such pale and weak colors I doubt they could beat a novice terrorist even if they had an advantage in machinery.

Seriously, to think that this is our elite. I must get to build my city as fast as possible and prepare to obtain all the best pilots I possibly can otherwise I will have to make do with sub-par capacity and I don't want to build weapons to someone who talks like he would kill a dragon with a glare but could probably not kill a squirrel 10 meters from him while using a Gatling gun.

Sighing I continued on my quest to stay as inconspicuous as I could. I quickly evaded the other princes, those I consider family because I feel like they will attract too much attention while from those I don't think as a family because I don't want to be pointed out as the 'fake prince'. It is not my fault Charles decided to nominate me a prince as well even if I wasn't supposed to be one, he even put me on the list to succession which infuriated some of the other siblings as they didn't want the competition.

Well, not like it matters all that much for me I guess. I am not interested in the slightest on becoming the emperor of Britania anyway.

As I continued on my mission of hiding away from my family the best I could I took notice of something. On the edge of the hall, amongst those of lower nobility, there is someone quite interesting. A boy is standing there on the lower section while trying even more than me to stay out of everyone else's view, his nervousness is palpable even from here and he is clearly not used to this sort of place. He is roughly 5 or perhaps 4 years old with whitish blond curly hair and bluish green eyes, but it is not his appearance or his nervousness that interests me.

It is his colors, he has very vibrant Red and Blue but his Yellow and Orange colors are shockingly strong, probably the highest I have ever seen. I could barely restrain a maniacal smile when I saw this, but looking around some more to see if there are other gems hidden away I saw three girls that made me wonder if this place is a party to me instead of to someone else. One of the girls has strong colors across the board with weaker Green and Brown but it didn't matter much as her Orange was strong enough, she was currently hugging a woman that is in the center of the party so I guess she is Oldrin Zevon. She probably is easy to manipulate right now, but I will have to wait as right now isn't that good of a time to approach her. The second is a blond girl sticking close to her mother, she has long straight hair with two pigtails in the front of her head tied with pink ribbons, she is quite gentle looking but the colors around her are fiercely strong in Red and Blue and moderately bright on yellow, she is not to be trifled with and I will have to see if I can approach her when she is not so close to her mother, it is just a shame that the tone of her Orange is not quite right to ensure absolute loyalty just yet, but I must at least give it a shot. She is likely Monica Krushevsky, the future knight of Twelve, but to think she still isn't 100% against being mine, I guess I should move in to ensure she belongs to me before she fully embrace becoming a knight for the emperor as it would be a waste to see such a useful tool vanish before I can take any advantage of her talents, after all I would have to take her out of the board if that happens. As for the last one, it is someone who I think I know who it is and, if I am right, I need special care on how to approach that ticking bomb, but for her I can find later as I doubt I would miss the creator of FL.E.I.J.A., Nina Einstein, so easily. I mean, the orange around her is so strong that it is blinding and I get a serious vibe that I might end up with a stalker if I go too hard, the Yandere is powerful on this one.

Well, I at least have one person I can approach right now with no worries, I might try and approach some of the others during the dance or something.

Moving while trying not to make a scene I approached the boy. He was quite petite, I dunno if it is because he is actually small or if it is because he is shrinking himself but that hardly matters to me right now. When the boy saw me close to him he almost screeched as he likely recognized me. Well, my eyes anyway as in the entire court only three people have purple eyes and these are me, the emperor, and Lelouch.

"Y-Y-your highness, i-it is a honors to meety you." The boy stuttered and misspoke as he quickly said, probably trying his best to act formal. He probably realized what he said as he continued. "I, I am sorry for mispoking just now. I mean-"

"Don't worry, it was nothing much and I was the one who intruded anyway." I said to calm him down. He quickly calmed down as I decided to continue. "Now, can you tell me why you are in a corner like this instead of enjoying the party?"

He looks nervous as he is shivering on the corner.

"M, my father. He is a new nobility that got his title from his merchant capacity. He received an invitation and brought me and mother with him, but he said I can't offend anyone or we might lose all hope over here in the court. Please don't ruin my family." He said meekly.

I could not help but giggle in a good mood.

"No worries, if he managed to obtain approval to this party he must be influential enough anyway, besides we live in a society that is of predators. You need more of a backbone to be respected here, but anyway. I forgot my own manners just now, let me introduce myself. I am Ciel Zi Britania, one of the princes of Britania and only true nephew of the emperor."

His eyes widened as he entered a stance like if he were a soldier, or to be more precise a kid pretending to be a soldier, as he said.

"M-My name is Slaine Troyard, happy to meet your acquaintance."

Well, he is interesting alright. I guess I might just have found my very first knight.